Knowledge, practice and complications associated with diabetic foot

Abstract

The patients with diabetes mellitus are at a higher risk of developing foot ulcers, cardiovascular disorders or a neuropathy that may be the reason for amputations. Such illnesses already exist in some of the diabetic patients at the time of diagnosis. To determine the knowledge and complications associated with the diabetes in Type II diabetes patients, a non-interventional, descriptive study was conducted at different OPD clinics in Karachi from November 2014 to February 2015. The data was collected through a self-administered questionnaire from Type II diabetic patients and then assessed using SPSS version 16.0 by applying suitable statistics. There were 44.9% male and 55.1% female Type II diabetic patients included in this study (n=118). Regarding the educational qualification, 45.8% patients were illiterate/primary education and 36.4% had secondary/intermediate education. The patients had age range of 47 to 67 years and the range of duration of their illness was 3 to 18 years. About 33% patients were smokers and 49.2% had family history of diabetes mellitus. It was found that 75.4% patients never received any education regarding their foot care and 41.5% patients practiced their foot care (i.e. 37.75% males and 44.6% females) regularly. Chief complications related to diabetes in the patients were hypertension, neuropathy and cardiovascular variations (43.2%). Almost 65% patients were receiving oral hypoglycemic and about 36% of the patients were advised to have specific diet with oral hypoglycemic agents. The level of awareness regarding complications associated with diabetes mellitus was not satisfactory among patients and hence the deficiency of proper diabetic foot care might lead to greater rates of amputations and diabetes related complications.